Closed due to lack of interest.

[Anonymous]

http://www.kiva.org/team/bitcoinmutualfund

https://glbse.com/assets/ (KIVA)

Kiva is a non-profit organization that helps alleviate poverty by microlending. An individual can lend an amount as low as $25 to needy small businesses and individuals around the globe. (More here: http://www.kiva.org/about) I want to lower that to as low as .1 BTC.

I have setup a Bitcoin-based Kiva mutual fund powered by assets on the Global Bitcoin Stock Exchange. All assets purchased will eventually go towards loans on the Kiva Bitcoin Mutual Fund team. However, 10% of the Bitcoin holdings will be held over a long-term period of two years from this date to be loaned with the capital gains earned over that period. We should all expect Bitcoin to have greater and notable adoption by then and thus more US dollars to go towards Kiva.

Here are the main objectives of the KIVA asset:

1: To achieve greater value for the Kiva charity.

2. Spread the Bitcoin name through a charitable effort.

So, if you're interested in helping, log into the http://glbse.com exchange and purchase an asset or two at a Bitcoin a piece.

You can also by being a volunteer. I need a reputable volunteer to act as a CFO in holding, converting and sending the finances to Kiva; preferably a notable Bitcoin institution. Contact me at my email below or PM me here if you're interested in helping me directly.

I will be posting updates within the following week, when I add earned funds towards our KIVA team.

Thanks guys!

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[Jalum]

So I purchase a share of the KIVA asset for 1 bitcoin.  That bitcoin is deposited into the KIVA account.  Someone then has to cash it out on an exchange and deposit the real money into a KIVA account so it can be lent out to people in need?  How does this do anything other than add a middleman step? 

Could you explain the 10% rake?  Why are you setting aside 10% of the funds for two years?  Is that long enough in your estimation for people to have forgotten about them and not ask how they were spent?

Is this the fourth or fifth bitcoin "project" where you've solicited the community for money? 

[bitleaker]

How long until you give up on this idea? Will it last more than 24 hours?

[evoorhees]

Very cool!

[Bigpiggy01]

This is a great idea  

A couple of quick questions, are these micro loans supposed to be repaid as BTC or $ seeing as we're converting to $ for Kiva?

I mean theoretically this could generate massive losses for the fund if the price rises or huge profits if the price drops.

What happens if the fund ends up in the green or red?

I'm all for just writing off any losses as "marketing costs for btc" and simply doing some good.

Is there a clear plan in case the opposite happens? As in potential profit gets reinvested in Kiva etc.

EDIT: profits and losses refer to btc

[BitcoinPorn]

How long until you give up on this idea? Will it last more than 24 hours?

Three posts in, that didn't take long lol.


I am not sure about how this will be viewed by some as though this is Kiva themselves a part of this operation, especially with that ticker symbol.  Unless they are in fact involved directly with this?

[k]

So I purchase a share of the KIVA asset for 1 bitcoin.  That bitcoin is deposited into the KIVA account.  Someone then has to cash it out on an exchange and deposit the real money into a KIVA account so it can be lent out to people in need?  How does this do anything other than add a middleman step? 

I think the idea is it reduces the minimum donation to 1 bitcoin from the current $25 if I understood correctly.

Could you explain the 10% rake?  Why are you setting aside 10% of the funds for two years?  Is that long enough in your estimation for people to have forgotten about them and not ask how they were spent?

I don't believe that this is meant to be a rake but rather holding off converting the BTC to $ for 2 years in the believe the the exchange rate will be more favorable at that time.

 

[rainingbitcoins]

Microloans? Isn't that that predatory lending thing with the collection tactics so aggressive that dozens of people in India killed themselves over them?

[HorseRider]

don't trust atlas with money.

This guy has raised money for several project on this forum before, none of them have been carried out as he claimed.

[kokjo]

don't trust atlas with money.

This guy has raised money for several project on this forum before, none of them have been carried out as he claimed.

+1

[bitleaker]

don't trust atlas with money.

This guy has raised money for several project on this forum before, none of them have been carried out as he claimed.

+2

He's also reneged on a sizeable bet (last night), and also caused grief when someone had the audacity to demand a refund from one of his earlier abandoned projects. Deal with Atlas at your own risk.

[kokjo]

don't trust atlas with money.

This guy has raised money for several project on this forum before, none of them have been carried out as he claimed.

Do not trust this man's word. I have proposed several projects and did not go through with them. I have returned all money I may have collected.

then why try again? you can't finish your projects.

DON'T GIVE THIS MAN MONEY!

[Giraffe.BTC]

don't trust atlas with money.

This guy has raised money for several project on this forum before, none of them have been carried out as he claimed.

Do not trust this man's word. I have proposed several projects and did not go through with them. I have returned all money I may have collected.

You have proposed MANY projects and gone through with NONE of them.  You are the last person anyone should trust to accomplish anything beyond writing spastic Internet posts.

[rainingbitcoins]

Microloans? Isn't that that predatory lending thing with the collection tactics so aggressive that dozens of people in India killed themselves over them?

No.

http://www.kiva.org/about/how

Looks like that's exactly what it is?

http://www.npr.org/2010/12/31/132497267/indias-poor-reel-under-microfinance-debt-burden

But microcredit in India doesn't come cheap.

The cost may be shocking to anyone in the United States who's ever borrowed for a car or a house.

"Just so your audience can brace themselves, the typical interest rates are in a range of 24 to 30 percent per annum," says Vijay Mahajan, president of the Microfinance Institutions Network, a trade group. "Most people find it very hard that this interest rate does any good to poor people who are the recipients."

One reason interest rates are so high, Mahajan says, is that microlending is both time and labor intensive.

Microfinance lenders do their business on the client's doorstep, meaning that representatives have to travel to slums or rural villages to make the loans and then come back weekly to collect the payments. But microfinance was also very profitable. So much so, says Shubhankar Sengupta, director of a Kolkata-based microfinance company called Arohan Financial Services, that it made sense to run it as a commercial venture, tapping into investment banks for the vast amounts of money needed to fuel the growing number of microloans.

It was so profitable that one company, SKS Microfinance, raised $357 million when it went public on the Mumbai stock exchange in August.

One Woman's Story

Rama is an example of microfinance gone wrong. She makes her living rolling bidis, the cheap little cigars smoked by India's poorest people. She lives in the town of Warangal, a farming center in Andhra Pradesh, one of the poorest states in southern India.

One woman cuts the leaves into shape, while Rama and others roll the smokes and bundle them into baskets. A quick, persistent worker can earn between 30 and 40 rupees rolling bidis, less than $1 a day.

Rama says microfinance representatives offered her a loan, with almost no questions asked. She took it, though she didn't have a plan to invest the money or pay it back. She used the money for household expenses, for medical treatment for family members, and to celebrate a birthday. A second company offered her another loan, which she used to make payments on the first.

Kurapati Venkatanarayana, who teaches economics at Kakatiya University in Warangal, says Rama began a downward spiral that's common among debtors in Warangal.

"They get loans from the second company, and pay to the first company. They take the third loan from third company, and pay to the first and second company," he said.

Before long, Rama had five loans from different companies, and no way to pay.

She says the collectors from the finance companies hounded her day and night, shaming her in front of her neighbors. They told her to get the money any way she could, by stealing if necessary, she says, and they told her she'd be better off dead.

Venkatanarayana says that's because, unbeknownst to her, Rama's loan payments had included a life-insurance premium.

"If the people who borrow die, the microfinance companies get the insurance amount," he said.

Rama says her 17-year-old daughter, Mounika, took the threats to heart. Mounika believed that if anyone in the family committed suicide, the debts would somehow be erased: She doused herself with kerosene from the stove. It took two days for her to die from the burns.

That's some fucked up shit for you to be into, Atlas. I don't know about this.

[bitleaker]

I have returned all money I may have collected. This is not a botch on my record.

It wasn't easy for some people to obtain refunds though was it? You had a tantrum when one person had the audacity to ask for his money back.

I am clean, trustworthy and reliable.

Clean maybe.

Trustworthy? Nobody who suffers from bipolar is truly trustworthy (as a bipolar sufferer, I speak from personal experience).

Reliable? Definitely not.

[Giraffe.BTC]

don't trust atlas with money.

This guy has raised money for several project on this forum before, none of them have been carried out as he claimed.

Do not trust this man's word. I have proposed several projects and did not go through with them. I have returned all money I may have collected.

then why try again? you can't finish your projects.

DON'T GIVE THIS MAN MONEY!

I have finished many projects. It's just have more ideas than I do projects. There is nothing wrong with proposing ideas on a forum and not going through with them. I was merely checking their viability.

Name one project that you've finished.

[bitleaker]

Project Mainstream is coming along just fine. I got on Alex Jones and I am working with institutions to get ads up. You do not know my true record.

Wow, you spoke for a couple of minutes on his show along with all the other crazies before being quickly cut off?

Will your 'adverts' with 'institutions' go the same way as your other advertising ideas? (i.e. nowhere)

I am the first person you want to go to when it comes to accomplishing a project I truly believe in and that includes this one.

How is the Woolong prototype going? 

[kokjo]

provide proof please!

[Giraffe.BTC]

don't trust atlas with money.

This guy has raised money for several project on this forum before, none of them have been carried out as he claimed.

Do not trust this man's word. I have proposed several projects and did not go through with them. I have returned all money I may have collected.

then why try again? you can't finish your projects.

DON'T GIVE THIS MAN MONEY!

I have finished many projects. It's just have more ideas than I do projects. There is nothing wrong with proposing ideas on a forum and not going through with them. I was merely checking their viability.

Name one project that you've finished.

Two years of robotics and various other ones that may or may not be on here. I have nothing to prove. You have my real name and my address:

125 Cedar Elm Lane
Georgetown, TX
78633

I am here to complete the task at hand and only help people.

So, out of the many many projects you've proposed and then abandoned, your successes are (a) being in a robotics club in high school and (b) making a phone call.

I stand by my statement: your reputation is crap, and anyone who gives you money deserves to lose it.

[HorseRider]

Atlas,

your talent lays in influence other people with your passion. You should not start any project from now on as you carried out so not much of them. why not just become a bitcoin missonary, travel around the U.S or even the whole world, give speech to every community, campus, group of people, company and so on, convincing them with the great idea of bitcoin.

Then you can raise money from this forum and your audience.

You're a better religionist than what you are now.